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The Great Weekend of Gaming.

Last Weekend played host to International Table Top Day on Saturday at Athena Games in Norwich, Diceni at the Forum the next day and I was back at Athena Games on Sunday evening for their monthly board game evening. But that’s not all, I also went to Athena Games to play a couple of games with my friends before our bi-weekly session of Star Wars Force and Destiny.

(Look at all those lovely games)

International Table Top Day 2016 was the fourth year of the event which is held around this time of year with aim to encourage new players and established hands to play more games. It is a great opportunity to meet new people, play some great games and maybe even win a few prizes.

There were an incredible amount of games on offer with the staff and some volunteers there to help demo the games. Over the last year I have become increasingly involved in the local gaming community and I was excited to attend my second ever Table Top Day.

(Settling the Island)

The day started with a game of Settlers of Catan, a game in which I have played many times including at last years UK Games Expo. I was playing with Lewis, Sam and a member of Athena’s staff and things didn’t start well. Lewis got both Longest Road and Largest army, however I managed to wrestle the former away from him and over time I managed to somehow convince him to give me just enough so that I was able to get to ten points and take the win.

After that Sam and I moved across to play one of my favourite games, Ticket to Ride. This was the third time I had played this game that week and I was looking forward to taking on both Sam and my good friend David who was demoing the game. David and I have played many times and built up a bit of a rivalry but in this game we were all pretty nice in terms of what routes we took and as it turned out it was Sam who eventually won.

(Touring America)

I also got to have a go at 7 wonders with some people who were playing the game for the very first time. For some reason I just couldn’t do enough to build my wonder and so I went for a more science based strategy with just enough military to stay ahead of my neighbours. While I got a lot of points from the science, I didn’t get that much from everywhere else and came somewhere in the middle of the pack.

After that I had the opportunity to play a game of X-Wing against my good friend Chris where I managed to pull off a couple of pretty sweet manoeuvres. Sadly the dice got the better of me and Chris did a great job of dispatching my forces to take the win. I also got to be a part of a game of Pandemic, a game that has many ways to loose and only one to win. Unfortunately for us we drew a lot of epidemic cards early on which left us facing an increasingly uphill battle until we ran out of time and the game was lost.

(Things did not go well for us)

International Table Top Day at Athena Games in Norwich was a lot of fun and it was great to be able to play such a wide selection of games. I got to play with old friends, experienced gamers and new faces alike, all of them were in good spirits and seemed to be having a enjoyable day. I got to play some Settlers of Catan, 7 wonders and Ticket to Ride which are all really good games as well as many others.

There was such a great atmosphere on the day and I hope everyone who went had a brilliant day, I know I did. Athena Games is just an incredible venue for playing games and I want to say a big thank you to all the staff and the volunteers who demoed games for us on the day. There was so much fun to be had and I really can’t wait to see what happens next year.

(Spy to the left, Spy to the right, take it back three spies.)

The very next day was the Diceni gaming festival at the forum which largely focused on miniature combat games which I am interested in, just not enough to spend that much time or money on it. However Langleys did have an interesting deal on the event which I contemplated but in the end I choose to spend some time with the people from NoBoG who were down there to play some games and maybe even promote the club a little bit.

They had just started a game of Jamaica when I arrived, the game is a race around the board with a pirate theme. It looked pretty cool and I hope that I get the chance to play it at some point in the future but I did get to play Ca$h & Gun$ with them so thats cool. We had powers on which meant there were all sorts of shenanigans and I did feel a little bit sorry for shaun who was shot a lot in that game, mostly by me.

(The race is on)

I only spent a couple of hours at that event as I had planned on seeing Captain America: Civil War that afternoon and had to leave in good time to go and see it. Diceni is a good event, I just wish they had a little bit more space dedicated toward the board game part of the hobby but as we had International Table Top Day the day before, I wasn’t too bothered by it.

Last of all I went to back to Athena Games on the Sunday evening for their monthly board game event however I went there a little bit later than normal and didn’t really play a whole lot. I mostly watched Jonathan and Andy who were playing a game of Star Wars Rebellion which is essentially Risk mixed with hide and seek. I did get to playtest a game which was followed by one of the easiest games of pandemic that I have ever played.

Over the course of this weekend I have played over a dozen different games in many different styles and formats, it has truly been a most epic weekend of gaming and good preparation for my weekend away at the Uk Games Expo in June. Thanks to everyone who played a game with me this weekend and I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as i enjoyed mine.